


The Spark

by arlathahn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Trees, Gen, M/M, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 18:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arlathahn/pseuds/arlathahn
Summary: The Force works in mysterious ways.For Luke Skywalker and Poe Dameron, it's not just nature that connects them, but fire, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really expect anyone to read this, and I confess I don't really know what this is, but I have a lot of feelings so I did a thing. Did you know Poe Dameron and Luke Skywalker are forever bonded via Force trees? I know, right? Fascinating. 
> 
> In all seriousness, this little work of art is inspired by [this ocean is yours, and mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6692713/chapters/15306568) (which is an incredible fic I recommend to everyone who comes by the Luke/Poe tag), this [tumblr post](http://tatooinelukes.tumblr.com/post/172595510404), and last but not least, the Shattered Empire comic. So uh, enjoy?

* * *

 

Luke never really had a home.

He didn't have many luxuries or indulgences, but he had Tatooine. He didn't have a mother or father, but he had an aunt and uncle. He didn't have wealth, but he had protection. He didn't have a relationship, but he had friends.

It was never a thing to be missed or mourned, until it was lost. Until the homestead became home to a plume of smoke so black it was near unbreathable, and the people inside little more than skeletons on the front steps. Luke Skywalker never thought of Tatooine as his home, not truly, not in a way that was completely his. But it was a revered place, a safe place, a place that held a piece of his heart in the form of two people, the last two people he had left.

So Luke looks. Luke stares. Luke forces himself to memorize this specific moment and this specific pain before he seals it away, deep down where the Empire will never find it. Until he can unleash it at just the right moment in retribution—in holy, righteous anger. Until he can pay them back for stealing what little he held dear, and setting a match to the rest.

Until that moment comes, Luke joins the Rebellion. He enlists like he always wanted, he flies and he learns and he succeeds. It’s a solid place filled with structure and comfort and Luke can feel the tendrils of want extending, a piece of his heart wrapped around Wedge and Biggs, Han and Leia. He makes some new friends, loses some old ones, but it works and it’s a home.

It's still never quite comfortable, never quite safe, but then, Tatooine wasn't either. But then, nothing will be until the Empire is gone and the Rebellion has won.

But then, home has never been a place, but a person. It’s never come alone, but in pairs.

Luke uses the Force for the second time, he trusts his gut and goes with his instinct and he _fires_. He makes the shot, protects the Rebels, saves the day. The Death Star explodes like a brilliant firework, and it feels like justice.

It feels like _balance_.

Turns out the explosion is truly a hallmark of equilibrium in ways Luke did not fully realize at the time, a relentless cycle of fire and pain, mere pawns in a much larger game. One goal gained, another home lost to a vengeful flame. Luke is too young to know any better at the time, too young to feel the hundreds of lives extinguished on the space station known as a dying star, too naive to realize the effects one organization has upon the other, and that the Force is not a side but a _choice_. A series of choices, even, but then, how could he? 

How could he know that this would be his legacy, his future, his fate? Fire and death, pilots and starships, mentors and betrayals, friendships and legacies? How could he know the Force was leading him somewhere, toward someone?

And even if he did, how could he know it was meant in the plural, and not the singular?

 

* * *

 

The second fire is a funeral pyre.

Luke was fully prepared for this meeting to end in death, but in dreams, it was always _his_ death. It was always his life that he was risking. He never intended for his father to take the fall, never anticipated sacrifice quite like this, with fire melting plastic and wire, skin and bone. “There isn’t much of me left,” his father had said, but there is plenty of him left to burn.

Luke did not ask the others to be here, did not expect them to understand. He felt Leia’s trepidation, her sympathy at Luke’s loss and little more. It is a time of celebration, Luke knows, and celebrate he will, but only once the past is buried and the remnants burned. Only once the heat has seared his skin and reminded him of his own vitality: untarnished and alive and wholly uncomfortable with the fire making his skin sweat and his eyes sting.  

The scars from the lightning are forever marked into his skin, an ever present reminder of a very different kind of fire, the kind that lights kindling and sparks a flame to life. It is a suiting scar, Luke thinks, an everlasting link between father and son.

Villain and savior of the universe.

 

* * *

 

The third fire is at Luke’s own hand, defending the last bit of holy nature left under the Empire’s reign.

The guards throw detonators Shara Bey’s way, and Luke doesn’t think twice before he captures them gracefully mid-air, tossing the explosives back the way they came. He doesn’t think at all until the Imperials cry out, flooded with fire and terror, their skin frying beneath their thick armors, no ventilation or ease in sight.

Shara Bey doesn’t blink an eye, and truth be told Luke doesn’t, either. It is easier to look death in the face when it is an enemy; it is easier to witness horrors when the choice is a single explosive or blaster bolt away—and it could come from anywhere, from either side of the fight.

It isn’t until Luke is in a meditation stance in the cargo hold, two Force trees on either side of him that he feels it: a pulse of the Force, alive and vibrant, reminding Luke of the life on the ship he inhabits, as well as the life he just snuffed out.

It’s fair to say there were no trees on Tatooine, or at least, not in the ordinary sense of the word. Not the sort that appear by the thousands on Yavin’s forest moon, not the large species with even larger leaves spewing every which way in their reach for the sun. And that’s not to mention the vibrant _green_ covering the entire planet in rich, vibrant color, adding a layer of shade near unheard of where Luke knew only raw, untamed desert.

Tatooine was also, as one might expect, not home to _Force_ trees.

If Luke has a sort of...fascination with nature in its entirety, he blames his upbringing as the cause. If he has a sort of obsession with the Force and nature intertwining, then he blames his upbringing _and_ his parentage.

Luke gifts one of the trees to Shara on his way out, because she’s earned the right to spend time with her family, and because it feels right. The Force is not something that is solely Luke’s to hold, and it would be wrong of him to covet what little there is left. The Force is not tethered to the Jedi, or even the Sith—the Force does not belong to a group, or a religious institution, but all people. The Force _is_ life, and Luke believes that life should be shared, and shared freely.

He offers a tree, and Shara makes her choice. The leaves of her particular plant are as green and ordinary as ever, but there is a faint glow, a calling Luke’s senses can nearly make out as a living, breathing color. The blue hue is becoming against Shara Bey’s complexion, her dark eyes shining as she handles the tree with care. When she looks back up at Luke and smiles, her eyes are bright. With gratitude, Luke thinks, but also with the Force humming beneath her skin, shimmering faintly.

“I know just where to put it,” she says, “and just who to give it to.”

Luke smiles back, and feels another broken piece of the world fall back into place.

 

* * *

 

The third fire is the hardest, the most debilitating.

Luke had thought himself matured when it came to familial flames, but destruction at the hand of a family member is just as painful as a funeral. Both result in death of sorts: one literal, one metaphorical.

The heart of the matter is a complicated thing, the Force within Luke even more so. He is tormented, in agony, stuck in a loop of pain and death, decay and ruin. For hours he cannot bring himself to move, or even stand. He festers on the wounds of this place, allows himself to feel every last cry, every last breath. It is his crimson sin, his penance, his greatest accomplishment and his greatest failure all in one: balance with the Force in the form of one Ben Solo.

And at the heart of it all, at its core, Luke can feel his own Force tree wasting away, leaf upon magical leaf shriveling up and falling away, joining the embers in the air as everything withers away into dust.

Shara’s son joins his side at some point, Luke couldn’t say when. His spirit is bright even if his outward appearance is morose in sympathy. It is not his mood Luke senses, but his being, his presence both with Force and without. It is a selfish thing to hold onto, even more selfish to lean into, but lean into it Luke does. He rests his weary back on his knees, and allows his balance to tip ever so slightly in young Dameron’s direction, grateful to feel a wisp of that comfort, that light. That familiar shimmer Luke had long thought snuffed out.

It is a remarkable thing, the bond between parent and child. And even more remarkable the bond between nature and person. Luke can feel the push and pull of the dichotomy: the destruction of one tree, while another remains. The heartbreak of one man, and the passion of the other. They are forever connected, forever intertwined, and Luke can say with full confidence he’s never been more grateful to feel the Force flowing through another being, so bright.

He’s never been more grateful, that his homes have always come in pairs.  

 

* * *

 

The fourth fire is the last, at least, for Luke.

Luke watches the last of the Jedi texts go up in flames and wonders if this is the last he’ll see of fire and blood. He wonders if this is the last and final time he’ll be forced to let go. He wonders if the elements of this world will forever be out of his control, if he’ll forever be witness to destruction in the form of heat.

He knows well by now it is the Jedi custom to let go, but by this point, Luke can say with all integrity it’s never been _his_ way. Luke Skywalker saved the galaxy by holding on, not by letting go, and it seems unfair, it seems cruel, for the Force to respond to Yoda’s beck and call in such a manner, a lightning strike that causes a spark.

Or maybe it’s pushing Luke toward action, instead.

The past has always fascinated Luke, and the future has always troubled him. Before he was a self-proclaimed Jedi the future was a mystery, a myth—a target and a goal. But once he honed his craft, once it was polished and clear and solely his, the future became a place of doubts and dreams, of possibilities held by a string. The world is not all that it once appeared to a boy native of Tatooine, but Luke can still see dreams, from time to time, in the form of others. Younger and more energetic than himself, equal parts passionate and headstrong. Luke had a fleeting thought it would be Rey who would convince him to rejoin the fight, this beacon of the Force who came to him when no one else could. But now Luke stares at the flames of the shakeshift temple, the decay almost resembling an X-Wing in its final light, and Luke thinks he was a foolish old man for ever thinking he had lost all hope. For thinking the only one who could inspire him was someone who could reach his long-lost island. The truth is, Luke’s inspiration already came in the form of someone Luke already met, some number of years ago.

A pilot, if Luke remembers correctly.

The Force is not always a pleasant thing, nor is it always right. It does not always lend itself to Luke’s beck and call, it does not adhere to a strict regiment or formula. The Force is not a comfort in the traditional sense of the word, but it is warm. It is a fire in its own right, and it burns solid and true when it speaks to Luke. Even if the message is hidden in something painful, something ugly and reminiscent of a pain so sharp the memory stings, decades later. There is beauty in pain, and Luke can think of no greater example of the Force than this:

Like the walls housing the last of the Jedi texts reminding Luke of a Resistance fighter he met many years ago.

Of a boy with a blue Force tree.

 

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Poe is eight years old the first time he meets Luke Skywalker.

His mother’s body is an evaporating cloud of smoke on a funeral pyre, the flames surrounding her not fitting the transcendent being known as Shara Bey. But Luke Skywalker is there, the hero of the Republic is _there_ , dressed in black with a silver lightsaber at his hip, and that's enough to make the mood a little lighter, to make the fire a little dimmer, to make the hole inside Poe’s chest less a burning thing and more a dim, solid ache.

Nothing will be the same after this, Poe knows. There’s no recovering from something as permanent as death, there’s no simple custom like the start-up or take-off of the A-Wing in his backyard. There’s not a one-size-fits-all fix, but for Poe, knowing there is a Force and there are heroes makes the sacrifice of one life just a little bit more worthwhile; just knowing he has the chance to meet Luke Skywalker, even if it’s at his mother’s funeral, makes the cost a little better, if only just.

It’s not a concept Poe’s father would understand, he thinks. But it’s something Luke Skywalker just might. Luke Skywalker, who lost his own father in a battle. Luke Skywalker, who might have witnessed his family on a pyre just like Poe is now. Luke Skywalker, who is a pilot. Luke Skywalker, who is a hero, still.

Always.

Poe looks up at his idol, the man who was a legend before he was a friend, the man who held Poe’s Force tree long before it was his. A man who looks right back at Poe, his face half in shadow, his expression subdued, his blond hair peeking out of his hood, a striking contrast.

He’s beautiful, Poe thinks.

It’s not just his face, which is lovely, or his eyes, which are ethereal. Or at least, not only. It’s that Luke himself is bright, but not where the eye can see. It’s his being, his very essence, and Poe didn’t understand words like that at all until his mother taught him, until his mother showed Poe her own knowledge of the Force, in a way most people don’t understand.

And now Poe knows, with a sort of gut instinct, that Luke is special. That their _trees_ are special.

Luke smiles, a tiny twitch of his mouth curling at the corners. Like he can read Poe’s thoughts, like he can sense the mourning mixing with the sense of understanding. It should be awkward, or embarrassing maybe, but Poe really doesn’t mind. Not when Luke Skywalker is here, reminding him of his mother but in an altogether different way. Not when Luke puts a hand on Poe’s shoulder, a steadying presence both calming and sweet.

With Luke by his side, Poe faces the flames of Shara Bey head on, and right there, he makes a promise to never shy away from fire again. He vows he’ll be brave, for his mother’s sake.

And for Luke’s.

 

* * *

 

The second fire is the day Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren.

Poe hears the reports before anyone else. Maybe because he has Leia’s ear, or maybe because of Luke. Poe doesn’t question the details; when word travels through the ranks of Ben’s disappearance, followed in short order by _Luke’s_ disappearance, Poe is the first pilot to run for his X-Wing, desperate to spearhead the search.  

Poe knows, logically, that Leia should be the one to find Luke. He knows they have a sort of bond, that Leia can sense her brother with a sort of sixth-Jedi-sense. He knows and he scans every possible surface of the planet anyway, because everything is in flames and Poe knows, he _knows_ with a sort of guttural, instinctual ache, that something terrible has happened here.

And somehow, it works.

Poe finds Luke at the base of the tree, _his_ tree, hood drawn and face clouded. His right hand is exposed, his robes are lined with scorch marks, some leaving holes, gaping and deep, along his shoulders and back.

“Luke,” Poe says gently, and that is when he sees it.

The middle of Luke’s inner sanctum is near-unrecognizable in the aftermath, with fire and flint still falling from the sky. Poe doesn’t really understand how the embers keep appearing from everywhere, even as they keep floating down as gravity would dictate, but Poe is smart enough to guess the reason is tied to what was once at the heart of Luke’s Jedi temple, his very own Force tree.

The miracle of nature itself is a sad, sapless sight, looking utterly un-ordinary as it perishes before Poe’s eyes. The leaves and sticks are just as susceptible to flame as any ordinary tree, though Poe wishes the theory had never been put to the test. The fire was ignited some time ago, Poe can tell, the trunk appearing cracked and dry, sparking and popping as the fire feeds and grows, destroying the heart of everything Luke once held dear.

Poe has the brief thought of grabbing a bucket—if the tree if susceptible to flame, then an equally ordinary douse of water should do the trick—but he silences the thought just as quickly. If anyone would have attempted such a feat it would be Skywalker, who has Force powers besides.

It occurs to Poe this is a sad metaphor for both their lives: Poe sees a remarkable tree falling apart by utterly unremarkable means, but for Luke, he’s sure the sight is entirely different. What would it feel like, Poe wonders, to feel something intertwined with the Force break apart? To feel something _die_? It isn’t Luke’s first experience with death, Poe knows that full well, but to know that your own life force is connected to it, would it feel like dying, too?

Would the pain be temporary, or a slow, torturous agony?

Poe doesn’t know what to do, knows there’s nothing he can really say, so instead he offers the same comfort Luke once offered him, when he was a boy. Poe offers his presence as he sinks down to his knees, he offers solace in the form of a hand on Luke’s shoulder. Luke doesn’t stiffen, nor does he relax, but neither does he remove Poe’s hand from his arm. Neither does he shirk Poe’s touch, however light.

Luke Skywalker does not disappear that day, or the day after. But it is the day Luke Skywalker vanishes in everything but body, make no mistake.

It is the day Luke Skywalker is lost, beside the ashes of his green Force tree.

 

* * *

 

The third fire is long after Luke Skywalker went missing, and a piece of Poe went with him.

Poe watches ship after ship explode in a fiery blast, and it’s just like the bombers not so long ago, except this time Poe doesn’t have a ship, or even a laser cannon at his beck and call. No, that exploded too, and now they’re defenseless, utterly and completely defenseless against the sleek, black ship chasing after them against a backdrop of infinite stars.

When the explosions hit _five_ , Poe starts a mutiny. He may not have learned his lesson as Leia would have taught him, he may still have a problem with authority and an attitude to rival Han Solo’s at times, but there is one immediate problem he can fix, one vessel he can save before the count hits _six_ and Poe is reminded of how many bombers he lost today, and how many he still _can_.

It’s always been about saving lives, not wasting them.

Poe doesn’t care about fuel. He doesn’t care about shields. He doesn’t care about logistics or even plans. He cares about his people, the only people he has left, he cares about taking responsibility in the only way he knows how, the only way that still matters. Poe will do anything for the Resistance, and he won’t let one more person he loves disappear in a cloud of smoke.

Or worse, a hail of rain.

It falls apart, of course, like it always does. Leia wakes up and shoots Poe with a stun that knocks him out cold, and then it’s all Poe can do to stare out the transport ship’s window and watch one final explosion erupt through that beautiful midnight sky; to watch Holdo tear apart an Imperial cruiser ship with nothing but an empty vessel and hyperspeed as her ally.

It’s not an explosion in the traditional sense of the word, but it is most certainly a detonation: Poe watches, rapt against the plane glass window, as the Raddus takes her last and final spin.

It’s deadly, to be sure, but it’s also _beautiful_. The Imperial cruiser splits straight in two, a silent eruption that causes electrical failures and implosions across the board—from both Empire and Resistance alike. What’s left in the aftermath is a trail of debris wandering through space: some large, some small, but all floating every which way, looking for a place to land against the backdrop of a luminous sky. Their reach is ever growing, the otherworldly hue of pale crystal blue appearing ethereal in the moments before the transport touches Crait’s atmosphere, the final vestiges of wreckage a blur blending with the light of the stars.

It wasn’t fire, it wasn’t hail, it wasn’t rain. It was something else entirely, a whole different kind of blast, deadly and arresting.

Luke would have liked it, Poe thinks.

 

* * *

 

The final fire is when Luke is fired upon by a hundred different guns, from a hundred different angles.

Finn rushes forward, ready to take the fight to its source, but Poe holds him back. He waits, he thinks, he _plans_.

Poe has never been much of a planner, but he knows Luke. Or at least, he likes to think he does. He likes to think their Force trees were connected, he likes to think their shared bond over nature, over piloting, over the Force is something sacred, something secret and treasured and understood.

Poe likes to think he gets Luke Skywalker, in his way.

Another time, Poe might wonder why Luke’s mere presence causes Poe to re-evaluate, where Leia’s slap across the face did not. He might wonder why Leia threw Poe’s reasons back in his face, where Luke doesn’t say a word. He might wonder how _he,_ of all people, might predict Luke Skywalker’s movements, when no one—not even his sister—has been able to do anything of the sort for the past five years.

Instead, Poe trusts his instincts. And his gut tells him to run.

It’s hard, not to look back. It’s hard, to carry forward. It’s hard when Poe hears those laser cannons fire, and fire, and _fire_. It’s hard to resist the urge to glance, even once, because Poe knows if he sees, he’ll risk going back. It’s the hardest thing Poe’s ever done, to not watch the fire at all, to not run straight towards it like his blood is singing along with the flames. It’s hard to trust the Force is speaking to him, even if he's wholly unequipped to hear it.

But it’s not hard to trust Luke.

There’s a war left to win, and there’s a fire just outside Poe’s doorstep. But Luke has shouldered his burden of flames, he’s extinguished his fair share of fires. He knows better than Poe how to douse the inferno, how to stop the lava from overspilling before it’s too late.

And when it’s over, Poe thinks, when this day is done and their escape has worked and the battle is over, Luke will visit him at his own blue Force tree.

Of that, Poe has no doubt.

 

* * *

 

 

_We are the spark that will light the fire that will bring the First Order down._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [tatooinelukes](http://tatooinelukes.tumblr.com) on tumblr, come say hi!


End file.
